Former Chicago Public Schools chief Barbara Byrd-Bennett will plead guilty to wire fraud and mail fraud in a case involving $23 million in no-bid school contracts, U.S. Attorney Zachary Fardon announced on Oct. 8.

“I have tuition to pay and casinos to visit,” federal investigators say Byrd-Bennett wrote in one of many damning emails discussing kickbacks she allegedly took in return for steering the contracts to a former employer.

Under the scheme, which was hatched even before she was hired to run Chicago’s schools, Byrd-Bennett was to have received a 10 percent kickback for each contract she sent to ex-boss Gary Solomon, authorities said.

Solomon and an associate, Thomas Vranas, also have been charged in the case and face additional charges of bribery and conspiracy to defraud the United States. Two of their companies, the SUPES Academy LLC and Synesi Associates LLC, have been indicted, too.

Byrd-Bennett worked for SUPES and Synesi before joining Chicago Public Schools on May 1, 2012. According to the indictment, the plan was hatched one day earlier, when Byrd-Bennett received an e-mail from Solomon in which he and Vranas proposed cutting her a percentage of the proceeds of any contract she sent to them.

Chicago Sun-Times, Oct. 8